Magnetic properties of superconducting phases NiBi and NiBi3 formed during pulsed laser deposition of Ni-Bi films

Abstract

Two superconducting intermetallic compounds in the Ni-Bi system, namely NiBi and NiBi3, can be formed as result of interdiffusion, if Ni/Bi are produced as bilayers at room temperature by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). These two equilibrium phases are responsible for the observed superconductivity in this kind of bilayer material. Due to different behavior in external magnetic fields, there appear two-step superconducting transitions in the electrical transport measurements. In this work we studied the superconducting and magnetic properties of the Ni-Bi bilayers with the formation of the two intermetallic compounds, NiBi and NiBi3, which have similar Tc ~ 4.0 K but very different upper critical magnetic fields at zero temperature [Bc2(0)]. The magnetic hysteresis loops of the pure NiBi3 phase show the behavior of a weak type II superconductor without strong pinning effect. Upon formation of the NiBi phase caused by highly energetic atoms during pulsed laser deposition, strong pinning effects appeared in the hysteresis loops below Tc. The isotherm V(I) curves show that the residual Ni layer does not induce spontaneous vortices in the NiBi or NiBi3 phases.